Chapter 15
Chapter Fifteen
EVERETT
“I’m supposed to trust that dinky little bolt to keep me from plummeting to my death?” I ask Hutch while he finalizes the anchor at the top of York Springs Mine. A cool wind buffets the slope, chilling my bare fingers and stirring the branches of the alpine fir trees dotting the ridgetop above us.
It makes me think of Vivian waking up to the view outside the cabin window this morning.
She’s probably already at the clinic. What color are her scrubs today? Yesterday at the smoothie shop, they were a dusty pink. Yeah they aren’t designed to be flattering but on her, they definitely are.
I was tempted to go up to Ruby Gulch last night to check on her, but Logan had a pile of homework, and I wanted to put in some extra hours after he was in bed. I wanted to read through the interviews taken from Vivian’s neighbors again, and sort through the crime scene photos. If it wasn’t Kent inside her place, I’m back to square one.
“There are two bolts, plus a backup,” Hutch explains, whipping rope through a pair of carabiners .
“Why don’t you just radio up if you find something, then I’ll join you.”
Hutch stands and cups my shoulder, his dark eyes serious. “Chain of custody isn’t something I’m willing to fuck with, and neither are you.”
He’s right. If evidence is discovered, and it someday is admitted during a trial, the last thing we want is a defense attorney telling the jury it was planted or tampered with in any way.
“Do everything I tell you, and I promise you’ll be safe,” Hutch adds. I know he’s not exactly thrilled to be going back down into this mine. I’m sure it brings up memories he’d rather leave in the past.
I glance at Zach, who is standing to the side with his arms crossed.
“It’s not too late to switch,” I tell him.
His slate-blue eyes darken with concern. “You okay?”
Shit. The last thing I want is my coworker thinking I’ve got some kind of complex.
“All good.” Forcing my fears back with a deep breath, I step into the harness, then follow Hutch’s instructions on how to tighten the buckle and the leg straps so they’re snug.
“When I’m at that first ledge, I’ll call up to you.” He walks me and Zach through the rappelling steps one more time.
“Got it,” I say. The technique isn’t difficult. It just requires a certain level of faith, of which I have very little. Then we have the true source of my fear. Even though I don’t remember it well, my nervous system does.
Hutch puts his braking device onto the ropes, double checks all of his systems, then turns on his body cam and ducks through the mine’s small oval opening.
A gust of wind ruffles the stunted grass poking up between the rocks. It’s only October, but these slow-building storm clouds have the distinct look of winter.
“First ledge!” Hutch calls from inside the mine.
I turn on my body cam then repeat the steps Hutch showed me to get onto the rope, then tighten my backpack straps and check everything off with Zach. “You’re solid,” he says, and taps my helmet.
I step into the mine, checking that the ropes don’t get tangled or caught up on something, then turn on my headlamp.
“On rappel!” I call down to Hutch so he knows to stay clear in case I kick something loose on my way down.
The narrow ledge drops away into darkness behind me. To my left is a rusty, twisted steel ladder that the original miners must have installed. The sides of the mine shaft sparkle in the beam of my headlight, a sign of the minerals they were after.
At the edge of the drop-off, I lean back on the rope. I know it’ll hold me, and nothing is going to go wrong, but my breaths are coming faster and my heart taps painfully against my ribs. I huff a firm breath and force my feet to walk backwards, down the wall of the mine shaft. A dry, earthy scent fills my nostrils as I descend, and out of the wind down here, it’s warmer. A few pebbles kick loose and fall away. I lose their echo over the wheezing of my breaths. The rock face I’m walking down backwards is rough and blocky, with decent footholds, but I’m still so relieved when I reach the ledge where Hutch is waiting that I could kiss him.
The ledge is about the size of my kitchen counter, and dusty, with pebbles and chunks of fallen rock collected here over the decades. I glance over my shoulder to where the mine shaft slopes into an abyss. Water is trickling from somewhere, and though it’s warmer down here, gooseflesh ripples up my arms and down my spine.
“This is where you found her?” I ask Hutch.
“There.” He points his light to the far side of the ledge, against the left wall.
Though I’ve studied the pictures our crime scene team collected after we removed Michelle’s bones, they don’t record the echo of the dripping water or the crunch of debris beneath my boots or the thick darkness pressing at the edges of my vision .
I loosen the ropes and squat down so we can get to work searching the shelf.
Michelle Swanson was twenty-three when she went missing from the nearby town of Cascade. She had graduated from Western the year before with a degree in Environmental Science and was in her first year of a job she was excited about, monitoring groundwater. That day, she had attended a rally with thousands of others protesting the transportation of hazardous materials via rail through the Bannock Valley further north. The protest was peaceful, with no arrests, but it slowed our investigation down because she wasn’t reported missing until the following Monday. By then, her trail had gone cold.
“Did any of the other victims have a necklace?” Hutch asks as we sift through the grit, turning over the fallen rock and pebbles.
“No.”
“So, if we don’t find one here, that you’ve got two different murder victims with a key pendant necklace is just a weird coincidence?” He grunts. “I thought you didn’t believe in those.”
“I don’t.” Teresa’s she says you got the wrong guy rifles through my thoughts. “But as far as evidence goes, it’s inconclusive.”
“It’s been five years. Could the necklace have disintegrated by now?”
“Probably depends on what it’s made of. Pure gold would last, but a cheap one of brass or aluminum would tarnish.”
We reach the end of the ledge without finding anything resembling a necklace. The crime scene techs who recovered Michelle’s remains last year likely searched every nook and cranny, but a second look for something specific will cover our bases.
I stand, brushing my dusty hands against my thighs.
Hutch glances over his shoulder at the abyss. “The bottom’s another thirty feet or so. You okay with that?”
I glance up the shaft, but the oval portal leading to the surface isn’t visible this far down. “How are we getting out of here again? ”
“With the gear I showed you, remember? It’s like climbing a ladder.”
I swallow my thickening fears. “Lead the way.”
He clips in, checks his systems, then disappears over the edge. Minutes later, I’m standing on the rocky floor of the mine. Water is seeping in through cracks in the walls and pooling in the shallow dips in the floor. The water must drain through more cracks under our feet, or we’d be submerged. Scanning the area with my light, the microscopic minerals embedded in the wet rock glint back at me. I squat down to search the rock floor, my fingers scraping through the wet sludge.
After fifteen minutes, finding nothing, I’m tracing a crack in the floor when a dark curve catches my eye. Down here everything is jagged and rough, the rock’s color a uniform dove gray, so it stands out.
“See something?” Hutch asks, his beam crossing mine as I close in.
From the small toolkit in my pocket, I pull out a pair of forceps and kneel on the wet rock. I pinch the edge of the object and gently tug it back from the depths of the fissure. It’s so corroded, I’m afraid it’s going to snap.
Hutch gets down opposite of me, adding more light. “Is it attached to something?”
“It’s wedged in,” I say.
Hutch lowers further, his cheek almost to the wet ground. “Give me the tool kit.”
I set it on the other side of the crack.
“Let me get a picture first.” With my free hand, I open the camera app and snap several, then set my phone aside.
Hutch uncaps a thin scalpel and gently levers it beneath the object. With both of us working, the object slips loose.
I drop it into my palm. The elements haven’t been kind. It’s blackened and tarnished and fragile, but the shape is distinctive.
It’s a key .
With the little loop at the top where it once hung from a chain.
Hutch looks away with a hard sigh.
“Does it look like Marin’s?” I ask him, my stomach tensing because I hate putting him through this.
“I think so, yeah. Same shape.”
I kneel so I’m closer to the fissure and get a few pictures showing the area where we pulled it from and the pendant in my palm. Hutch opens an evidence bag from the kit, and I carefully slip the key pendant inside.
Zach comes over the radio. “How’s it going down there?”
I pull the radio from my pack. “We’re just about done.”
“Are you bringing back souvenirs?”
“Affirmative.”
Even though I’m sure this news brings up a thousand questions, over the radio isn’t the place to share them. He clicks the mike in affirmation.
I use the Sharpie to label the evidence bag then tuck both items into my pack. I get out my Maglite and use the stronger beam to inspect the area where we freed the pendant. Could there be more in there? I shine the light from all angles, but the fissure isn’t very deep, and the only things stuck inside are pale grains of sand.
“Marin’s necklace was thin. If it’s the same kind, I don’t think it’d survive five years down here.”
I give the area one more sweep of my Maglite, but my gut says he’s right. The gold necklace, if it was ever here, is gone.
I pack everything up and sling on my pack. Hutch helps me hitch the ascending devices onto the ropes.
“Remember, slide with your right hand, then step into the sling and unweight your left foot, then slide the ascender with your left, and so on. You’ll get a rhythm going.”
“Right.” I huff into the darkness and get going.
The action and Hutch’s steady encouragement grounds me, and soon I’m climbing .
Hutch follows, the beam of his light crisscrossing mine and his even breaths a reminder that I’m not alone the way Michelle was.
As I work toward the glow of daylight at the top of the mine, I focus on how the pendant reshapes the investigation.
Four—now five?—young women murdered and left in or near a mine. Three with a similar key-shaped pendant. Hutch is right—I don’t believe in coincidences. Especially when several other important details line up. The use of a mine to dispose of the body. The killer’s M.O. The victims all fitting a certain profile.
Our killer has enjoyed a year of freedom, and he did what we most feared—murdered another innocent young woman.
There’s also the possibility that we’re dealing with a copycat. I’ll need to float that idea by Ballard.
When I step through the oval opening in the mine shaft and into the sunlight, I have to force a couple of deep breaths before I can get my fingers working to unhitch my gear.
Thank fuck this chore is over, but it’s only strengthened my determination to catch our killer. Because what kind of sicko would leave someone down in that dungeon to die?
On the drive back to Finn River, once I have service again, I call Luke Ballard. He picks up on the first ring.
“Got something for me?” His usual thoughtful tone has an edge of impatience. Not surprising given what he’s been waiting all day for.
“We pulled a key-shaped pendant out of the bottom of that mine.”
He gives a deep sigh. “Okay.”
“Zach’s overnighting it to your lab as soon as we get back.”
“Good. I’ve got something for you too,” he says in a heavy tone. “Post-mortem of the Big Pine victim came through. Her name is Kimberly Saxon. Twenty-two years old. Recently graduated with a nursing degree from Idaho State. She had been missing for two months before a group of kids found her.”
“Shit.” It’s like the killer is taunting us. He has to know killing a woman with such similarities to the others and leaving the key pendant would get our attention. Maybe that was his whole point.
“Cause of death is the same as the others. No evidence of sexual assault.”
It’s only a small relief, but it helps soften the ache in my chest a little. “What about clothing?”
“Just underclothes.”
“Like Marin.” I pass through the outskirts of Cascade, then accelerate onto the highway.
The forensic anthropologist who examined Michelle, June, and Nichole-Renée’s remains did not find evidence that suggested they were fully clothed. We’ll never know for sure, but I believe the experts.
“Tox screen results will take another week or so.”
Marin’s came back negative, meaning she wasn’t drugged and wasn’t intoxicated, though it did reveal the anti-depressant she’d been taking since Christmas, prescribed by her pediatrician, Dr. Boone, unbeknownst to her parents. I hated breaking it to them that their daughter had been suffering alone.
“Did the M.E. get anything else?” I’m sure Ballard has picked up the note of hope in my tone.
“One thing so far. Shredded fibers found on Kimberly indicates the killer cuts off the clothing. Most likely after their death.”
“Fuck,” I say on a sigh. “Why would he do that?”
“Probably because it’s the only way he can obtain the kind of intimacy he’s after. Remember, this guy’s got a critically low self-esteem. Maybe he takes pictures of them. Maybe he masturbates, though if he does, he’s careful not to leave any DNA.”
I think about a killer going to all this trouble to satisfy some sick urge. It paints a chilling picture.
One we need to crush, once and for all .
“We should have more once the analysis is complete,” Ballard says, drawing me back to the long stretch of highway ahead of me.
“How long will that take?”
“A month at least.”
Fuck, that’s a long time to wait.
Marin’s body had been exposed to almost twelve hours of snow and rain, but our state crime lab collected trace amounts of DNA. All of it came from her friends or family, but one profile did not.
One with no match in the system.
It also didn’t match Jeremy Fisher’s. Which meant the chances of him being our murderer dropped to zero.
That mystery DNA profile was just one of the many loose ends we couldn’t tie up.
However, if we get DNA evidence from Kimberly Saxon’s body that matches that mystery profile from Marin’s, it’s solid proof both women were killed by the same person.
“Any chance Kimberly’s murderer is a copycat?” I ask to play devil’s advocate.
“You mean if the DNA doesn’t match?” He hums. “I’ve been thinking about that too. If so, it would mean someone knows about the pendant, and that’s not common knowledge.”
“Which would narrow the pool of suspects,” I say.
“True,” Ballard replies in an even tone. “Make a list of everyone who would have access to that info, and I’ll do the same.”
“Got it.” I slow to merge onto the I-10 to Finn River. “Do you still think he gets his victims up to the mine while they’re alive?”
“It makes the most sense. He’d have to be Hercules to carry them that far.”
Though most of his victims are petite—Marin was barely a hundred pounds—he’s right. When search and rescue has to evacuate an injured hiker, it takes a team of eight people , minimum, to carry someone just one single mile.
“So, he lures them up to a mine, then kills them. If he’s not in it for some sort of sexual satisfaction, what drives him? ”
“Power,” Ballard replies in a confident, swift tone. “It’s why he not only strangles his victims but hits them as well. Overkill is a sign of a complicated set of motivations. He kills his victims quickly, in a way that makes him feel powerful, but then the self-hatred and shame kick in, and he has to destroy. It’s why he tossed Marin off that cliff. Why Michelle was found deeper in that mine. After he’s killed, he needs to erase what he did.”
Though I studied criminal psychology in college and again at the police academy, hearing it packaged like this in relation to human beings makes my stomach tighten. “How does this guy function in the real world?”
“He’s a master at keeping that side of himself hidden. It’s not rare that serial murderers have families, jobs.”
I stare at the road ahead, my questions like puzzle pieces rattling around in my mind. “If Kimberly was found in a mine, does that mean the killer is back to being cautious?”
Marin’s death is the one anomaly—she was the only victim left in the open. One theory is that our killer was getting careless. Luke said it was a possible sign of escalation, the killer’s craving outmatching his caution.
“Maybe we got too close to him with Marin’s case,” Ballard says.
“That doesn’t jive with him leaving a pendant with Kimberly.”
“I have a theory about that, but give me a little more time with it,” Luke replies.
He sounds almost wistful, and though I respect his scholarly drive to understand this sicko, I could give a shit about his why. “I want this guy’s head on a platter,” I say, gripping the steering wheel.
“Agreed,” he replies. “Real quick before you go, I’m still working on that LAPD cop you asked about. My contact is undercover, so getting through to him takes time.”
“No problem. Thanks, Luke.”
“Yep.”
We end the call, and my stirred-up thought snap back to what we found today. If the killer thinks he’s going to keep getting away with murder, what’s going to stop him from striking again?